


childhood friends, highwaymen, and other ghosts you know

by Schistosity



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Culture & Folklore, During Timeskip (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Fire Emblem: Three Houses Blue Lions Route, Ghosts, M/M, Sharing a Bed, Storytelling, You've heard of Dimitri (mentioned) now get ready for Dimitri (implied), and also we were both boys??, he's just lurking, what if we investigated mysterious events connected to our dead best friend, who might not actually be dead
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-25
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:34:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24906916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schistosity/pseuds/Schistosity
Summary: Years deep in a war slowly tearing apart their lives, Sylvain and Felix reunite by chance in a small town behind enemy lines, chasing down rumours of an Empire-hunting vigilante and stumbling upon a ghost story that sounds eerily familiar…Or, people don’t have to be dead to haunt you, but it definitely helps if they are.
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius & Sylvain Jose Gautier, Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 20
Kudos: 68





	1. a note, before we begin

**Author's Note:**

> [slides my spooky faerghus folklore headcanon fic under the door disguised as a sylvix during-war reunion bedsharing fic] ahaha! finesse!
> 
> This is a weird one people. I was like "write something without claude in it" and then "okay but i still get to do weird, unecessary world building". Please enjoy!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Still of a winter's night, they say, when the wind is in the trees,  
>  When the moon is a ghostly galleon, tossed upon the cloudy seas,  
> When the road is a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,  
> The highwayman comes riding,  
> Riding, riding,  
> The highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn-door.”_
> 
> — The Highwayman, Loreena McKennitt & Alfred Noyes.

_They like their ghosts in Faerghus._

It’s a sort of joke among the other nations of Fódlan, that the people of the Holy Kingdom are uniquely grim folk. Death and famine and the bitter winds of winter hang over them like a shroud.

So, they say, who can blame them for a few more ghost stories?

As a country so well acquainted with the long nights of the north, the longest night of all is like kin to them. Many cultures associate the cold and the dark with death, so the people of Faerghus often wonder why it is so surprising that they hold death close when they wear both the cold and the dark as second skins.

They spin tales of it around hearths and campfires, with more intimacy given to the horror than their neighbours dare. Stories of drowned mothers seeking children along riverbanks, dogs with glowing eyes cooing songs of ill portent at crossroads, wandering soldiers stalking battlefields for their missing heads, and strange women weeping tuneless ballads in the moors—tales of lingering woe are rooted in their consciousness as a nation, for better or worse. They know that the dead see and hear and walk, with the same certainty that the sky is blue and rivers flow to sea.

Faerghus knows the dead like it knows the cold—like it knows winter and like it knows plague and famine and bloodshed; intimately, and without surprise. Faerghus knows stories of all these things, woven into their bones like the tight threads of their bearskin cloaks. Faerghus tells stories like it fights wars; well, and with fervour.

There is a war now, like and so much unlike the wars of the past. But the thing about war that is ever constant is that, no matter how much it may feel like it to those in charge, it rarely manages to stop the world in its tracks completely. Life goes on in all corners of a war-torn nation, changed perhaps irreparably but not stalled.

So, when winter falls on the lands of the north, no number of occupying Imperial summer-children, whose lands reek of sunshine and fertility, can dissuade the tales of new dead from taking root, nor can they stop the festival banners from being flown.

The northern festivals are older than Faerghus itself, so it is no wonder the Holy Kingdom’s war has no bearing on them; Pyrenatt, the festival of winter’s beginning, owes nothing to the cold ashes of the Blaiddyd-Kings, nor to the slow-rotting corpses of southern Emperors and eastern traitor-kin—only a place at the table for their souls if they wish to take it.

Pyrenatt is the night the dead walk the frosted moors of Faerghus, beckoned by revelry to the settlements of the living, where bonfires burn the claws of winter back for one more night. When the veils between living and dead are thinnest, the horrors of stories come to life. A night of revelry and trickery, community and story, a night of the dead.

But in the towns of Blaiddyd territory, the rumour among the people is that the dead, as of late, haven’t been quite so dead at all. They say a highwayman comes riding through country roads in the night, disappearing into the shadows before dawn. They say he rides for revenge. They say he has the strength of ten men and a wicked blade. They say when the moon is full, his icy blue eye burns for the blood of imperials.

_They like their ghosts in Faerghus._

It is as much a threat as it is a promise.


	2. close encounters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sylvain runs into an old friend while chasing rumours of another.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _“On Halloween night, the Great Pumpkin rises out of his pumpkin patch and flies through the air with his bag of toys for all the children.”_
> 
> _“You must be crazy. When are you going to stop believing in something that isn't true?”_
> 
> — Charles M. Schulz, _It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown_

Sylvain Jose Gautier had learned a long time ago that people don’t have to be dead to haunt you.

It definitely _helps_ , but it’s not a requirement.

He locks eyes with this particular ghost from across the town square, where droves of festival-goers flit between them like the blustering waves of an ocean. Practiced in the art of giving and taking attention in controlled amounts, Sylvain beats down his shock and lets his eyes slide easily away from the face of the other man as if he hadn’t seen him at all, but he sees the other recognise him anyway.

This ghost isn’t stupid, but he _is_ impatient, so Sylvain knows he only has a few moments to slink off to a more secluded area before this inevitable confrontation becomes a public one.

He settles on a dim alleyway off to the side of a closed-up tannery. The small street winds at a slight angle from the main road, so Sylvain can stop halfway down it and be sure he won’t be seen. After that he just waits.

His palms are sweaty. If his knees shake, he will tell no one.

It doesn’t take long for a cloaked figure to appear at the mouth of the alley and strides forward. Despite his dark, heavy hood obscuring his features, Sylvain feels the man’s eyes snap to his as he comes closer. He pulls off the hood, revealing a face Sylvain had expected but couldn’t be more relieved—nor surprised—to see.

“Heya, Fe,” Sylvain says, unable and unwilling to keep the dumb grin that follows off his face. His heart trembles in his chest.

Felix Hugo Fraldarius, as pretty and angry looking as the day Sylvain last saw him, shakes his head. “Idiot,” he says, and then he’s wrapping Sylvain in a tight embrace.

The hug is short but needed. Sylvain lets out a contended huff and feels a knot of tension loosen in his chest, even just from this small contact. It’s been a _long_ fucking time.

He tells him such after they pull apart and Felix laughs. Or rather, he exhales very sharply out of his nose, which is sort of the same thing with him.

“What are you _doing_ here?” Felix asks in a low voice.

“Good to see you too,” Sylvain says. Felix rolls his eyes, and the motion is so familiar it makes Sylvain’s heart soar.

“You know what I mean, idiot.”

“I know.”

Sylvain should not be here, neither should Felix. That they are here at the same time is as incomprehensible as it is wonderful. This isn’t so much an opinion as it is a stone-cold fact.

The small farming town of Aalhus, nestled into the eastern corner of Blaiddyd territory, is soundly under the dominion of the occupying Empire. Sylvain and Felix, who have been fighting in a fevered rebellion in the north for the better part of two years, are right now behind enemy lines.

They’re both dressed in plainclothes, kitted in leather armour and the barest iron weapons—though Felix does have… two swords?... strapped to his hip… but that’s just how he is—and no signs of insignias or crests or wealth on either of them. They look like simple travellers, not the leaders of the losing side of a civil war.

Sylvain knows why _he’s_ dressed this way, and he has a sneaking suspicion it’s the same reason Felix is, but they can’t talk here.

“We can’t talk here,” he says, and Felix nods. “Let’s find somewhere a little louder.”

The early dark of the season has fallen by the time they find a tavern with rooms available.

That’s the thing about covert conversations; It’s actually _better_ to have them in places with a lot of people. Human beings are, by design, very social creatures. So, put them in a room with booze and their best friends and they aren’t likely to give a single shit about what’s going on around them.

The duo is welcomed into the tavern by warmth and colour, the bar packed near to bursting with townsfolk in celebration, and as Felix zips ahead to book them rooms, Sylvain orders them drinks and finds a small table.

He realises, looking around, that he hadn’t been to a proper Pyrenatt celebration last year, nor the year before. He’d been… busy.

For a festival surrounding death and the beginning of winter, it was actually a pretty lively ordeal. Sylvain only remembers a few of them from his youth, and fewer still that he had actually enjoyed when Miklan hadn’t been a dark spot to the side of every tent or dance floor or feast hall.

It looks nice here, all lit up in the warm colours of harvest, with late season berries and wreaths on every available surface, and the smell of honeyed mead in the air. It’s nice, even if the subject matter is a little grim.

Sylvain is drawn out of his reverie by Felix’s return. He weaves through the throng of bodies milling around the tavern.

“I hope you don’t mind but they only had a single bed.” He spins the key around idly on his finger. “You’re not still a snorer?”

Sylvain has the decency to look offended. “I am _not_ a snorer.”

“Uh-huh,” Felix says. “Don’t insult me.”

“Not… not a loud snorer,” Sylvain admits as he leads them to their table.

They sit down and Sylvain takes a moment to drink Felix in.

It’s been over a calendar year since he last saw him. It’s not as if their houses aren’t working together in this rebellion, but time and fate has always seen fit to send them to opposite corners of their territories from the other, orbiting each other but never colliding. Not until now.

Felix has grown. He’s a little taller, though not much broader. Sylvain can tell his hair is longer even though it’s tied back—long enough to fall well past his shoulders at this point. It’s nice. It makes him look like his brother.

Sylvain doesn’t say that.

“It’s really good to see you again,” he says instead.

“You too,” Felix says. “How is… everything at home?”

Ah, small talk. Sylvain’s forte and Felix’s bane. It’s ncie that he’s trying.

“Eh.” Sylvain makes a see-sawing gesture with his hand. “We’re surviving. I’d like to be doing more than that, but beggars can’t be choosers.”

Felix grunts in agreement and drums his fingers on the table, narrowing his eyes as he scours the room for eavesdroppers.

“I don’t actually care,” he admits finally, and it’s nice that he admits it. “This isn’t why we’re here, is it?”

“Yeah,” Sylvain says, leaning forward. “What brings a boy like you to a place like this?”

He wonders if it hurts Felix’s eyes to roll them so often. “I asked you first, if you remember.”

Sylvain tuts. “Well, the thing is it’s _kind of_ embarrassing; I’d rather you go first—”

“Embarrassing?” Felix scoffs. “What could possibly embarrass _you?_ Maybe if I accused you of chasing tail all the way here from Gautier, but I doubt even _you_ would cross an active war-zone for some above-average p—”

“Pints for the boys!” comes a call from beside them, and without warning two tankards of hot, spiced mead are being dropped on the table in front of them.

“Thank you kindly, ma’am,” Sylvain says to the barmaid with a smile, but he keeps his eyes locked on Felix’s stony expression as she drifts away.

“Anyway… you were saying Fe? Something about above-average… pints?”

Felix kicks him under the table.

“What are you _actually_ doing here?” He asks emphatically, his expression that familiar mix of indignation and focus.

Sylvain takes a sip of his mead and leans back. It’s deliciously warm, settling deep in his stomach instantly. He takes a moment to savour it before answering. “I’m going to go out on a limb and say the same reason as you are, probably.”

Felix narrows his eyes. “And that would be?”

“Oh, you know… the rumours—”

“Of course,” Felix almost spits, but most of the vitriol is drowned in the mead at his lips. It steams, even in the warm interior of the tavern. “Looks like we’re both idiots.”

The rumours in question are a strange mixture of old and new and had reached Sylvain’s ears by chance across the rumpled bedsheets of a lovely young woman.

Her name had been… Harriet? Hannah? It had started with an ‘H’, at any rate. She’d been a refugee from Gideon, coming north to flee the Empire’s slow crawl. After the fall of Fhirdiad, Sylvain hadn’t had the heart to tell her she should probably be running in the opposite direction if she was trying to escape conflict.

Casual sex with the Margrave’s son wasn’t the place for grim advice, though—not in his experience, at least.

But it _was_ the place for gossip.

_“They’re all a’buzz about a highwayman in Blaiddyd,” she says, tracing a scar on Sylvain’s bare chest. He hums thoughtfully._

_“A highwayman?” he asks. “Like a bandit?”_

_“Like a_ ghost _, milord,” she whispers coyly. “They say he rides at night with his lance held high, tearing imperials apart like the pretty silks you nobles like to wear—”_

_“His lance?” Sylvain repeats, trying to ignore how dry is mouth is suddenly._

_“Dripping with the blood of his enemies or something…”_

_Sylvain laughs. “You really know how to get a guy going.”_

_“Oh, hush!” She props herself up on one elbow, tossing her dark, velvety hair over her shoulder. “If I had to hear about all your cathedral lays, you can make time for this_ very _important information from the front.”_

_“The front, you say? Is this real or a ghost story?” Sylvain says with a grin, tucking a dark strand behind her ear. “You haven’t been very clear.”_

_“Who’s to say it isn’t both? Plenty of strange things in the world. They say this highwayman’s true love was killed by the crown—”_

_“Which crown? There’s certainly a fair few going around these days.”_

_“Does it matter? It’s just a story. Quite a sad one, too. They say his true love was killed by the crown, and he too, in his quest for revenge, and now he hunts them.”_

_“Sounds like a busy man.”_

_She swings her leg over him and settles herself over his hips, hands tracing the contours of his torso. The moonlight stains her dark hair silver and blue, tumbling over her shoulders like a cascade. She smiles._

_“They say you can see him now. If you’re out on the moors when the moon is full, you’ll see him riding on the prowl for imperials, with a single blue eye flashing like starlight—” she leans in close, teeth catching the edge of his ear as she whispers “—such a beautiful face, milord. Sounds too pretty for a creature like that, don’t it?”_

_Sylvain wonders when the room got so cold._

Sylvain leans back in his chair and stares Felix down. So, he’s obviously heard the rumours too, though Sylvain would be surprised if it was through the same medium as he had.

He wonders what Felix has heard—enough to plant enough doubt in his heart to come here himself, like Sylvain has, that’s for sure. But Felix is a proud creature; Sylvain knows he has to tread carefully.

“You have to admit… it’s certainly an interesting idea. At least from what’s reached _my_ ears.”

“No, it’s _not_. It’s a terrifying idea, and it’s not _true_.”

“Oh?” The contradictions in Felix’s words sting a little, and Sylvain feels a curl of irritation. “Then what is the Fraldarius _heir_ doing in a little backwater Blaiddyd town, hm? If you don’t believe it then why did you bother coming all this way yourself? Sightseeing? I didn’t see you as a holidaying type, Fe, but maybe once this is all over we should take a trip to Almyra and get our _tan_ _on_.”

“Shut it,” Felix hisses. “Just because I’m here doesn’t mean I’m going to be _stupid_ about it.”

“Oh! So, you admit you’re here for the rumours!”

“ _Of course_ I am, Syl! Why the fuck else would _anyone_ be here?!”

“Well—”

“Yoohoo, boys?”

Sylvain and Felix’s mouths snap shut in a twin motion that would almost be funny if it were happening to someone besides them. They turn in unison, meeting the eyes of the table next to them, who all seem to be absorbed in their conversation. 

“Trouble in paradise?” The speaker—a woman in her thirties with dark hair—asks coyly. “Don’t let us interrupt, but you’re bringing down the ambience a little.”

The thing about crowded rooms is that they’re a great place to have a covert conversation, but only if you’re not _yelling_ said conversation.

 _Goddess above and Saints below her…_ Sylvain _really_ fucking hopes they hadn’t heard that bit about the Fraldarius heir. He pointedly does _not_ make eye contact with Felix, who he knows for a fact is coming to the same horrifying consideration and is almost definitely sending him a glare that could kill small animals.

“No trouble here, ma’am,” he says smoothly. “Just a bit of a heated discussion is all.”

“Sounded like rumours,” says the man at the table. The woman brightens.

“Oh? What _rumours_ are you fine lads talking about?” The woman leans forward, resting her chin on her hand. “It’s Pyrenatt Eve, you know… If there was ever a time for stories, it’s now!”

“Well, we’re simple travellers from the south,” Sylvain lies coolly. “We’ve been hearing tales of attacks on imperial soldiers around Blaiddyd territory, we’re just, uh… a little worried is all.”

“Attacks on imperials? Sounds like you’re talking about the highwayman,” the man says.

Sylvain doesn’t miss the look Felix shoots him out of the corner of his eye, but he’s holding the reins of this conversation tight and he’s not ready to let go.

“Might be,” Sylvain concedes. “But I’m not a big believer in ghosts.”

“You’d better start being one,” the woman says. “The highwayman is the real deal.”

“We’ve heard conflicting reports,” Felix cuts in. “Some people are saying it’s a ghost, but others are saying it’s a living man. Do you know anything about that, bard?”

_Bard?_

Sylvain’s eyes fall to the woman’s feet where, lo and behold, a small fiddle case is resting against the table leg. Huh.

“Well, it’s a _story_ , first and foremost,” the woman says. “Stories are like rivers—moving and changing like water, hard to nail down. What I know won’t be what you know, such is the way of words.”

“The stories we start with aren’t always the ones we end up with,” the man says, and the way he dives in over the woman’s words is like a practiced dance between the two. “What face the highwayman wore when he met your ears might not be the one he wore when he met ours. It certainly won’t be the one he wears tonight, nor the one he wore in moons past.”

“I didn’t come here for riddles and poetry,” Felix all but snarls. The woman throws her head back and laughs.

“It’s Pyrenatt in Faerghus and you’re demanding ghost stories, boy,” she chuckles. “Riddles and poetry are all you’re going to _get_.”

“But they’re not helpful,” Felix grumbles.

“If you’re looking for helpful then you’re in luck, because we met a man just the other day who saw the highwayman!”

Probably a lie, Sylvain thinks. Bards are notorious for stretching the truth for profit and attention.

“Oh? And what did your man hear?” He asks.

“Oh, the same old tale everyone’s heard—” she clicks her fingers at her companion “—what did he say again? Blue eyes like ice-fire, a wicked spear, and gnashing teeth?”

“Something like that.”

Felix makes a subtle gesture from across the table and Sylvain stifles a laugh.

“How does that song go?” The female bard plucks at her fiddle lazily, face only slightly contorted in concentration. “—I think it was… ah! _The wind was a torrent of darkness…”_

She began to ease out a melody on the fiddle, and soon even more heads were turning their way, story-starved festival-goers, hungering for song and horror woven from words.

_“… among the lusty trees—”_

“ _Gusty_ trees,” corrects her companion.

 _“—gusty trees,”_ she continues. _“The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon the cloudy seas…”_

Sylvain is pulled out of the music by Felix’s sigh.

“I’m going to bed,” he says in a low voice, which is code for ‘we need to speak somewhere more private’.

Sylvain nods and begins to gather their things. They’re almost gone when he feels a tap on his arm. He turns to see the woman’s companion, smiling up at him with a wry grin.

“Some advice for you, good sir. Sometimes the story you get isn’t the one you want to hear,” he says. “And sometimes the story you want to hear isn’t the one you need.”

“Thanks,” Sylvain says dryly, lingering a little while Felix storms away. “We’ll keep that in mind.”

He swiftly decides they _won’t_.

_“It was their parents.”_

_Sylvain pauses unwrapping one of his sandwiches and looks up at Dimitri, who stares back with a nervous look in his eye._

_“Oh, and who told you that?” Sylvain asks. “Your dad?”_

_Dimitri mumbles something that sounds like ‘yes’ and Sylvain laughs. Ingrid slaps him on his knee._

_“Sylvain! Don’t be mean! I wanna hear it!”_

_“Me too,” Felix says, mouth full of bread. Ingrid turns around to direct her fury at Felix for his bad manners, temporarily saving Sylvain from her ire. He leans over to Dimitri._

_“So, what’s the original story?” he asks._

_Dimitri straightens up with all the regal power in his eight-year-old body, when he speaks it’s in his Serious Story Voice. “The winters are cold in the far north, and the family were hit hard by the frost. None of their crops grew, and their goats wouldn’t make enough milk to sell—”_

_“This isn’t a very nice start to a story,” Ingrid mumbles. Felix shushes her._

_“—The husband and wife, who were losing too much money trying to feed their two children, decided to get rid of them. They left them deep in the wood with no way to get home—only the trail of bread that got eaten up by animals. They probably left the farm too, so if the children had arrived home, they still would have been alone.”_

_Sylvain cocks his head. “Then what about all the witch stuff?”_

_“Uh,” Dimitri scratches his head. “That part doesn’t change much. I think.”_

_“Why’d it get changed?” Felix wonders aloud, spraying more crumbs and getting another reprimand from Ingrid._

_Dimitri shrugs._

_“Maybe no one wanted to hear a story about family killing family,” Sylvain mumbles. “Maybe the truth was too grim.”_

_“What’s ‘grim’ mean?” Felix asks._

_“Scary,” Sylvain says. “Mean. Upsetting. Dark.”_

_Felix shrugged. “I guess it’s nicer to imagine that it’s all an accident than the parents did it on purpose.”_

_“It’s almost a different story underneath, then,” Ingrid says with a shiver. “Like it’s wearing a mask—all nice on the outside, but on the inside it’s rotten.”_

_Sylvain thinks that’s true of a lot more than just stories._

_“Stories change all the time,” Sylvain says. “Eventually they lose all their truth. But maybe it’s better that way. I like the untrue version better.”_

_“Me too,” says Dimitri in a small voice._

Sylvain closes the door to their inn room behind him with a soft click.

“This is a weird town,” he announces. “Never met a group of people who like the sounds of their own voice that much—and that’s including the people we went to school with.”

“Yeah,” Felix mumbles in agreement, shucking off his jacket and throwing it over the back of a chair. “But that…”

“…sounded a lot like him?” Sylvain finishes. Felix’s golden eyes meet his in the dim light, flashing with some volatile concoction of feelings Sylvain doesn’t feel up to touching.

Felix, similarly, doesn’t seem to want to elaborate just yet, so he turned back to undressing.

Sylvain watches him out of the corner of his eye.

He shucks off his outer layers and boots with an antsy fervour as Sylvain does the same much slower. There’s something nagging at Felix’s mind, and he wears that irritation like a second skin.

“What did you hear?” Sylvain ventures, wandering over to light some of the lamps in the room while Felix struggles with the clasps on his belt. “What… what _face did the highwayman wear—”_

“Shut it.”

“I just want to know,” Sylvain says dryly. “Comparing notes with me is going to be a lot easier than comparing notes with half-drunk bards with a penchant for eavesdropping.”

Felix sighs

“Heard something about a mounted ghost riding around the countryside slashing throats,” Felix spits out. “All sorts of _flavour_ on the thing—dead lovers, revenge—”

“Stolen kisses in the night?” Sylvain teases.

“Sure. It’s all very… pretty. But stories have grains of truth in them. They always do. So, I wanted to check.”

“You find anything?”

“I found a paper trail, and ghosts don’t have those,” Felix says, sitting down on the end of the bed. The low lamplight casts warm shadows in his dark hair. “I found evidence of an unknown traveller buying a palfrey from a sympathiser near the Gautier border and moving east. Our spies reported an abandoned horse matching the description near Fraldarius. The stories… they followed that route, for a little while.”

Sylvain makes a noise. “That’s a little different from what _I’ve_ heard.”

“What have you heard?”

“Mostly the story part,” Sylvain admits. “More about the romance than anything substantial. The horse is surprising to me—I’d only really heard about night-time sightings and his _ghostly_ _visage_ —”

He wiggles his fingers in a ghostly motion, but Felix doesn’t rise to it.

Felix scoffs. “You heard a horny ghost story about a guy murdering imperial soldiers and went ‘oh damn, it must be him!’?”

Sylvain plants a hand on his hip. “It’s not like you have a whole lot more evidence on your side, either.”

Felix grits his teeth. “I thought… I thought it had to be him, for a little while, but as I came farther south I started hearing conflicting stories. This ‘highwayman’ character has apparently been around for years—well before even Lambert took the throne.”

“And yet you still came? Even though you don’t believe it’s him?”

“I don’t know… When you want to see someone, you’ll see them.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“He’s _dead_ , Sylvain.”

Felix turns around so his back is to Sylvain, but he isn’t done. Sylvain clambers onto the bed and leans around until he can look Felix in the eye again.

“On whose authority? Cornelia’s? It’s like you _want_ him to be dead.”

Felix groans in exasperation and falls backwards onto the bed. It bounces and creaks a little under his weight, and he stares up at the ceiling with a scowl.

“I don’t _want_ him to be dead, Syl,” he says. “I want it to be him. I really do, but I’m just being realistic.”

“Then you _know_ I have to ask again. Why are you here?”

Felix wiggles around and pulls the quilt up over his face. “I never said me being realistic was very _successful_.”

Sylvain sighs and joins him on the bed, tugging off his boots and crawling under the sparse covers. He watches the lump-that-is-Felix twitch and shift to make room for Sylvain on a bed very clearly made for one, much smaller person.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Felix mumbles into the pillow.

“I’m not looking at you like anything,” Sylvain says in an amused tone. He meets Felix’s eyes as the younger man shoves the blanket back down and turns his head, staring up at him with golden eyes.

“If it’s not him,” he begins carefully, “which it’s not, by the way—then it’s someone else. There’s someone out there who’s been killing imperials for upwards of six months with impunity. Maybe that someone would be worthwhile to recruit, you know? And…”

Sylvain smiles sympathetically. “And you just have to make sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Me too.”

Sylvain snuffs out the lamp by the bed and settles in.

“Stories change. You know that. Maybe this is an old story but that doesn’t mean it’s not him.”

“Stories don’t usually change to become _more_ true.”

“Sure,” Sylvain admits softly. “But when has anyone we’ve ever associated with been _usual_?”

Felix rolls over onto his back, staring up at the ceiling.

“I thought I was going to be doing this alone and no one would have to see what a fucking hapless fool I am,” he says. “But now I have you to bear witness to me. As always.”

Sylvain chuckles. “Coming all the way out here to prove this _isn’t_ Dimitri doesn’t make you _hapless_ ; it makes you a good sceptic.”

It strikes Sylvain—and probably Felix, too—that this is the first time either of them has said his name the entire evening.

“Oh? And what does it make you?” Felix says in a hushed tone. “You followed a fairy tale all the way out here to prove it _is_ him.”

“I’d like to think it makes me _hopeful_.”

“Mm,” Felix says.

“Mm,” Sylvain echoes.

They lay there for a moment, trying to get comfortable. They’re both a little bigger than the last time they did this, and it’s making all the difference. There are elbows in ribs and bony shoulders in soft backs. It takes them a little while to settle, but in the end it’s comfortable.

Felix is a familiar warmth, and he’s still smaller than Sylvain, so his eventual position in the crook of his elbow is a familiar one too. His short, soft breaths are a welcome, old thing.

They’re silent for a long time, listening to the muffled revelry downstairs.

How ironic, Sylvain can’t help but think, that this is all happening on Pyrenatt. The day of ghosts and the dead. Dimitri has been presumed dead for Goddess knows how long, and only now rumours of a revenant wreaking havoc in the backcountry reach them—a revenant with eyes like him and a weapon like him and a vengeance like him? For such rumours to reach them now, to lead them here on this day, when the veil is thin and the dead come walking in the streets—if Sylvain had been any more pious, he might have called it fate.

But that… sucks. That’s sad. He doesn’t want to go to sleep sad. Not with Felix here.

So, “Hey. You wanna go dancing with me tomorrow?”

Felix blinks and looks up at him. Even in the dark, when Sylvain glances over he can see confusion etched on his features. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me. Dancing!” Sylvain grins. “Tomorrow is Pyrenatt. It’s traditional, right? We’ll get some spiced pheasant and kick it around the bonfire.”

Felix snorts. “I suppose next you’ll be wanting us to make masks together?”

“Sure.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“That’s not a no.”

“It’s not a yes.”

“I missed you.”

“I missed you too, idiot. Go to sleep.”

The sounds of celebration drift up through the cracks in the floor. Wailing songs of ghosts and the dead fill the streets and it is not fear they are met with, for this is Faerghus and such things are sewn into their flesh like buttons on a fine coat.

_“The highwayman comes riding, riding…”_

On the outskirts of the town of Aalhus, under a waxing moon, a trio of imperial soldiers are about to be slaughtered by the River Strathan, their bones snapped and insides speared like so many little river-fish. By morning the meandering reaches of the waters that flow through town will run red as the reckless tearing of scavenging animals spills the corpses’ blood upstream.

But now, Sylvain falls asleep to the sound of omens, staring at the velvety strands of Felix’s hair fanned across their shared pillow. He thinks that might be a good thing to dream about, but when he finally sleeps, he dreams instead of flaxen hair, eyes the colour of the ocean, and blood in water. He does not remember it when he wakes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys seen that tavern scene from Over The Garden Wall? Yeah that. SING, LOVER, SING!
> 
> This is kind of a departure from things I usually write, so drop me a line if it's something you'd like to see more of :)
> 
> “Pyrenatt” is based loosely on Samhain, a Gaelic pagan festival celebrating the beginning of winter and the end of the harvest. While I have taken inspiration from some aesthetic details and some concepts, none of this should be taken as fact. Samhain is a real festival with real people who follow and participate in its surrounding religion, so if you’re interested in more you should look into their resources online.


	3. out on the wiley, windy moors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Felix investigates a mystery and doesn’t like what he finds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEATHCLIFF, IT'S ME, CATHY—
> 
> Thank you so so much to friend of the show @kyoguru who drew [the ending of the last chapter](https://twitter.com/kyoguru/status/1277343304057749504?s=20) back in June when I thought I'd finish this fic in a month. We vibin.

Felix rises before the sun to the sound of a crier in the street below the window, screaming the morning’s news.

_ I hate small towns, _ he thinks. He doesn’t consider himself a snotty noble, but he does like  _ not _ getting his headlines verbally thrown at him at the crack of dawn every day like a rock through a glass pane. 

He cracks his eyes open with effort. It’s still dark, which is odd because criers usually wait until it’s at least light out to begin their rounds. Now though, only the grey touch of pre-dawn spills through the window casement, painting the rumpled sheets and furs of the cramped bed in the washed-out dimness.

Felix sighs, relishing in the trapped warmth of his body heat and the familiar weight beside him. It’s an oddly peaceful moment.

“Imperial soldiers found dead upriver! All signs point to foul play!”

_ Oh for fucks sake. _

Sylvain is sound asleep when Felix looks over to the other side of the bed—‘side’ used liberally here to refer to one half of the single mattress they’d attempted to cram themselves onto comfortably last night.

The chill of the morning is seeping into the room, stinging at any part of Felix’s skin that is exposed from the furs and blankets piled onto the bed. Sylvain, apparently smarter in sleep than in waking, had shifted in the night to hide his entire face under the covers, with only a shock of red hair visible on the pillow.

Felix stares at it for a moment before huffing a strand of his hair out of his face and getting out of bed.

The cold is as immediate as it is annoying, and Felix is already grumbling as he tosses back the covers. He extracts himself as stealthily as he can from Sylvain’s side and shivers only slightly when his bare feet hit the cold, splintered floor.

Not stealthy enough. Something to work on.

“What are you doing?” Sylvain croaks, shifting only a little under the blankets.

_ Trying to be nice, _ Felix thinks, but what he says is, “Leaving.”

Sylvain grumbles. “Would it hurt to be quieter?”

Felix rolls his eyes, even though there’s no one conscious enough to appreciate the expression. “Sorry I don’t have as much experience creeping unnoticed out of people’s beds as you,” he whispers.

“Low blow, Fe,” Sylvain mumbles sleepily into the pillow. “Why’re you up?”

“Someone’s been murdered.”

“Mm… okay.”

Felix starts to mentally count backwards from forty as he quietly gets dressed. He tugs on his overshirt and coat and busies himself with tucking and fastening everything to a presentable degree while Sylvain groans himself awake.

“What’s fer breakfast?” he murmurs.

“Not sure,” Felix replies. “Might just be leftovers from last night. I’ll pay if you want.”

“Sounds good… I’ll get lunch…?”

“Alright.”

_ Twenty-two… twenty-one… _

Felix sits back down on the bed to lace up his boots and feels Sylvain shift. He finally casts a glance at his companion. He’s curled himself up against the throes of waking, his face, from what small part of it has been made visible, is scrunched up in annoyance at the new noises.

“You’re such a baby,” Felix mutters.

“M’not a baby,” Sylvain yawns. “M’just smart enough not to get up before the sun’s up.”

_ Ten… nine… _

“Okay well, you can stay in here and take half an hour to do your hair or whatever,” Felix says, grabbing his swords and belts off the bedpost and fastening then around his waist, “but I’m going to go investigate.”

Sylvain rolls over scrubs a hand down his face where the ambient lamp-light from outside is cutting lines down his cheeks. “Yeah, uh, sounds good, I’ll see you in... wait…”

He trails off.

_ One… zero… _

Sylvain shoots bolt upright in bed, casting off blankets and furs in his mad scramble for sudden coherency. He aims a wild stare at Felix, eyes wide, and his hair looking delightfully less like hair and more like the top of a frazzled rooster.

“What do you mean  _ MURDERED _ ?!” He shouts.

Felix hides a laugh and shuts the door behind him.

It doesn’t take Sylvain half an hour to come downstairs. It only takes three minutes. Felix is leaning against one of the posts on the inn’s front stoop when Sylvain finally stumbles out the door, doing a very passable job of looking like he hadn’t recently been drooling on his pillow. 

Felix passes off one of the bread rolls he’d bought inside. 

“Thanks,” Sylvain says. “What’s the news?”

Felix nods to the crowd gathering down the street. He’d watched the soldiers drag the cart in—laden down with bloodstained sheets and coverings to hide something undoubtedly grisly beneath. The townsfolk woken by the crier had quickly donned their hats and coats at the promise of something interesting—murmuring incessantly, and predictably, about their elusive local spectre. 

“Three imperial soldiers were killed out on the moors last night,” he reports. “Imperials are being hush-hush about it so far but… well, I don’t think I have to tell you who all the locals think did it.”

Sylvain snorts. “Probably not, but is the Empire really stooping to ghost hunting?”

“Not sure. I was waiting for you before I questioned anyone.”

Sylvain brightens at that.  _ Stupid, bright Sylvain. _

Felix only looks at his grin for a second before flicking his eyes back to the cart and crowd. 

“Shut up.”

“Thank you.”

Felix and Sylvain follow the flow of the crowd easily, weaving down wide dirt roads through the centre of town in a morbid sort of procession as the townsfolk crowd around the imperial soldiers and their cart.

“So… about last night,” Sylvain says. Felix scoffs. 

“Never thought I’d get on the other side of a patented Gautier morning-after talk,” he teases. “Do go ahead.”

“Oh, ha-ha,” Sylvain laughs dryly. “Funny. Fuck off. I’m being serious—”

He lowers his voice.

“—now that we’re both willing to admit that Dimitri being alive is something we’re considering… what are your thoughts on this…?” 

Felix sighs, blowing a loose strand of hair out of his face.

He’d had spoken the truth last night when he’d told Sylvain he wanted this ghost story to be Dimitri.

As much as his relationship with the prince had been fraught and strained and cruel at times (always his fault, never Dimitri’s) there’d always been a part of him, deep down, that had seen a potential inside Dimitri worth loving. Something worth fighting for. 

_ Storytelling is as much a part of the fabric of Faerghus as snow and steel. But however much a man of Faerghus Felix has become, there are some stories he wishes he hadn’t been told.  _

_ Rodrigue tells him Dimitri is dead in the early hours of a winter morning. He summons him to the entry hall, where he clutches a scout’s missive in one hand and wipes tears with the other. He tells Felix in words laden down with useless apologies and wet emotion that Dimitri has been executed. _

_ Stories are always a little bit true. They always come from somewhere—start from something—that’s what Glenn had always told him. He’d always thought that was a good thing, that such fantastic things could contain a touch of reality. _

_ But right now Felix wishes his father was more of a liar, just this once, and that no part of this story carried north on falcon’s wings could possibly be true.  _

_ But his father is not a liar, and stories are always a little bit true.  _

_ Felix runs out into the grounds, ignoring his father’s protests. The snows bite at him like hungry teeth, but he is from Faerghus, and snow is as much a part of his patchwork as steel and storytelling. He stands there in the freezing morning and  _ screams _.  _

_ He screams and screams until his voice is gone, until the tears frozen to his face become painful, until every single bird in the trees has alighted in fear. He screams until he’s empty.  _

It’s hard to let go of a brother—Felix knows that well. But he’s been let down in the past, and he doesn’t want to be let down again. He’s not holding his breath, even if this morning’s violence seems to echo every story he’s chased so far. 

“I’ll say what I said last night,” Felix says carefully—he always tries to speak carefully when he’s with Sylvain, because he’s never been as good a speaker as him, and even though Sylvain has never once held that against him he still loathes being on the back foot. “When you want to see someone, you’ll see them. This  _ could _ be him, it  _ really _ could, but we have to be rational about it. We can’t write this story the way we want.”

“Alright,” Sylvain says simply. 

“I don’t want to be let down,” Felix admits. “I don’t want to see  _ you _ get let down, either, so… just…”

“Keep my hopes low?” Sylvain suggests wryly. 

“Keep your hopes low,” Felix agrees. 

The tension bleeds away a little like it’s being chased back by humour in the way the sun chases back shadows. Felix still feels the weight of all their  _ what-ifs _ and  _ maybes _ on his heart, but it seems a little lighter now. 

“I appreciate all the concern about my hopes,” Sylvain chuckles. “But it’s a little harder to hurt my feelings than you’d think.”

“Oh. I know  _ exactly _ how hard it is to hurt your feelings,” Felix scoffs. “They’re fragile as hell.”

“Well,” Sylvain says in a low, sultry voice. “Maybe they’re just fragile for  _ you _ .” 

Felix barks out a surprised laugh, and Sylvain grins like he’s won a prize. He spins on his heel so he’s walking backwards and facing Felix, and raises his eyebrows. 

“It’s seven in the morning,” Felix says, reaching up to punch Sylvain in the shoulder. “Do you ever  _ turn off?” _

“It’s a sickness, baby!” Sylvian croons, clutching his heart. “I’m cursed!” 

“Awful,” Felix laughs. “Save it for the guards I’m about to make you sweet talk for me.”

“Ah! My forté! How were you even planning to do this without me here?”

Felix shrugs. “I dunno. Probably threaten people.”

It’s Sylvain’s turn to laugh loudly. It’s boisterous enough that it draws the eye of a few of the townsfolk they’re trailing behind, and Sylvain quickly stifles the sound. 

“I’d say we make a good team, then,” he chuckles. “Less bodily harm all around.”

Felix rolls his eyes. “ _ That _ I’ll agree with.”

They fall back into easy silence and trail the procession along the river bank until it reaches the imperial base of operations. Felix hadn’t seen it when he’d arrived in town, so he’s a little surprised when it turns out to be a set of simple tents in neat rows near the town’s chapel. He supposes the Empire doesn’t want to waste resources establishing themselves in a town so close to the war front. 

Felix keeps his eyes on the procession, namely the cart and the guards. They turn off behind one of the larger tents, while a new set of soldiers emerge and hastily try to set a perimeter to keep Aalhus’s curious citizenry back.

“I’m going to sneak around back and try to get a look at the bodies,” Felix mutters under his breath. He begins to take off his sword belts and passes them to Sylvain. “Put these on.” 

“Wha—Why, exactly?” 

“I don’t want to jingle while I’m trespassing.” 

“Completely understandable.”

Felix shoots him a look. “You go…  _ flirt _ .” 

Sylvain gives him a wink and an “aye, aye, cap’n” and then Felix is gone. 

He ducks behind a line of wagons and skirt around the edge of the camp towards the chapel. In the shade cast by the pale building, he sneaks up to the back of the nearest tent and peeks inside. 

Empty, thank the Goddess, but not what he’s looking for. 

“—like a fucking animal got at them.”

“Isn’t that more likely? You’re not telling me you believe this shit—”

Felix bites back a gasp and dives into the tent as two soldiers walk past. He tracks their shadows against the interior wall of the tent as they meander by, their conversation low enough for the nearby crowds not to hear, but loud enough for Felix to hear everything. 

“I don’t know… this place is fucking  _ miserable _ ,” the first soldier says. “If I were some kind of tortured ghost this would be the  _ exact _ place I’d show up.” 

Felix rolls his eyes, and shifts slightly towards the direction the men had been coming from. He lifts the tent cover and slips outside again. A glance reveals no Imperials, so he takes his time trying to orient himself. How many rows back had the tent been? How tall? How—

He hears a horse whinny. 

Or he could just… follow that. 

Felix dashes across to the next row of tents, gluing himself to the early-morning shadows. As he rounds yet another corner, he sees a pair of stablehands guiding a pair of horses out of a large tent, emblazoned with an eagle. 

Perfect. 

After waiting for the coast to clear, Felix slips under the loose flap at the back of the eagle-tent, feeling the rough cotton catch in his hair as he does. He is immediately confronted with the cart, and drops low, skirting around the back as silently as possible. 

He balances on his heels and begins to slowly lift the bloodstained covering. As soon as he lifts it even a fraction he’s assaulted by the smell of blood and other, far less savoury human fluids. Choking down a gag, Felix pulls the sheet back in its entirety. 

Upon a first impression, Felix would be inclined to label this entire mess as an animal attack. Three bodies—at least he thinks it’s three—lie dead and still in the bottom of the cart. Their clothes, already decorated with imperial reds, are drenched entirely in crimson. Their sparse armour—most of it leather and only bare scraps of mail, typical for a small battalion such as this—is slashed and bent as if it were card paper. 

But it’s the bodies themselves that are the foulest. 

Viscera cakes their skin and hair like paint. In the low light of the tent, they glisten like freshly skinned meat, and Felix wonders morbidly if they actually might be. 

Each of them, from what he can see, appears to be disembowelled. Their lower torso cavities are almost empty, with how little is left inside. If Felix didn’t know better he’d say a bear did this—one of the vicious Faerghan storm bears that only the royals dare wear as mantles—all the ripping, tearing and gouging here is so raw and animalistic… 

But…

Felix reaches forward, morbidly glad to be wearing gloves as he reaches into the closest body’s stomach cavity, and tugs. 

A spearhead comes loose in his hand, and Felix gags as he turns it over. It’s glistening with blood so completely that the sheen of the metal tip is not visible in the slightest. 

These wounds are man-made. 

_ Rational, _ he thinks. Bandits, thieves…  _ anyone _ . 

But in his mind’s eye, all he can see is  _ blue _ . 

When Felix makes his way back out to rejoin the crowd, he finds that it’s thinned out considerably. The novelty of a brisk morning murder has worn off, which makes it far easier to find Sylvain chatting up a female soldier. 

“—But I’ll stand by the fact she looked  _ way _ too young to be someone’s grandmother,” Sylvain is saying as Felix approaches. The woman he’s talking to looks heartily unimpressed. 

“Uh-huh,” she says, and her eyes flicker to the side, seeing Felix come closer. “Can I help you, sir?” 

Sylvain brightens. “Ah! This is the friend I was telling you about, Captain—”

_ Oh good, he’s found a fucking captain.  _

“—I trust you’d be willing to talk business now? My partner and I are more than willing to lend our services to your investigation.”

Felix raises an eyebrow and receives an almost imperceptible head shake in response.  _ Later _ , it seems to say. He keeps his mouth shut. 

The captain gives Felix a once over that might have made his skin crawl if he was the kind of man to give even a single shit what other people thought of him. He’s privately glad he just spent the last ten minutes crawling around the dirt in her camp; at least now he looks slightly less like someone rich enough to have access to regular bathing supplies, which is probably the cover Sylvain is going for. 

He gives her a once over in return. She’s got that  _ fresh _ sort of pallor all the imperial ex-pats seem to have, the one that comes from a sudden arrival in a country that gets far less sun than they’re used to. Her clothing is a little less piecemeal than her dead comrades’, but still not wealthy by any standard. She’s got a thick fur cloak wrapped around her shoulders, and her dark hair tied only half up—Felix reasons it’s so her neck has a little bit more insulation from the chilled air. 

He remembers, for just a moment, the delightful bitching and moaning of the Black Eagles at the academy in the winter; the imperials are always so  _ terrible _ in the cold. 

He tries not to smile.

“My name is Captain Verges, newcomer,” she greets. “I’ve been speaking to your… companion.” 

“Or he’s been speaking at you?” This earns him a short laugh. 

“Quite accurate,” she says. “He’s been telling me some… colourful stories. He mentioned you two were mercenaries?”

The shape of Sylvain’s plan begins to form in Felix’s mind. He nods. 

“We’ve been working in Faerghus our whole lives,” Sylvain says. “We know this terrain—can track across it, read it—you’re going to lose a lot in the weeds here, captain—we can help minimise that.”

Verges looks thoughtful for a moment.

“Names?” She asks. 

“Claude,” Sylvain lies easily, and Felix credits only the fact that Sylvain is so good at drawing attention to himself that Verges doesn’t see his jaw clench 

She nods towards Felix. “And what about your friend here?”

Felix tries to catch Sylvain’s eye and fails heartily.

“This is Hubert,” Sylvain lies again, and oh, Felix decides, he’s really in for it now. Felix tries to glare him into a fine paste, but Sylvain is too busy being a good liar to pay him any mind. “He’s a bit rude, don’t worry about him.”

Verges frowns. “Sure,” she says, then looks at Felix. “Praytell, Mister Hubert, how can I be sure a pair of Faerghan mercenaries are  _ trustworthy _ ?”

She’s asking him on purpose, Felix thinks. She’s testing the bounds of Sylvain’s bluff. 

“Can’t be sure anyone’s trustworthy these days,” Felix says. “But we’re no crown loyalists if that’s what you’re getting at.” 

“That’s not exactly what I’m getting at.” Verges looks between the two of them, tapping her foot. “What I mean to say is that I will not tolerate any  _ questionable local sensibilities _ muddying this case.”

The boys share a glance. “And what would those be?” Sylvain asks. 

“You people called your nation ‘Holy’,” Verges remarks, “but you Faerghans carry strange lore close— _ pagan _ lore. No chance denying it with your festival underway.” 

“You a pious woman?” Sylvain remarks testily. “Does that bother you?”

“Hardly,” Verges snaps. “I am simply saying that I will not have wanton ghost stories being tossed around regarding  _ my _ men.” 

Felix steps forward, placing a hand on Sylvain’s chest to push him back slightly. 

“If you want ghost stories you can ask the bards,” he snaps. “Don’t accuse us of fear-mongering just because of where you  _ perceive _ us to be from.”

The captain narrows her eyes. 

“Oh I know the performers you speak of,” she says, her expression slightly sour. “I’ve received reports from other battalions regarding their… curiosity. Apparently, they have been tracking this ‘highwayman’ character along the front for some time… the one everyone here is so  _ fond _ of.”

“They’re annoying, if that’s what you mean,” Felix grumbles, remembering the smug expression on the woman’s face at the tavern last evening. “And full of shit.”

“And nosey,” Sylvain adds. “But we’re not them, Captain. We understand how important this is. You have our word we won’t bring in any…  _ personal lore _ … to your investigation.” 

Verges holds their stares for a moment before sighing. 

“Fine,” she says. “You may accompany us, on the condition you prove useful. We meet here in an hour.”

She turns on her heel with a snap of her red cape, and then she’s gone. 

As soon as Verges is out of sight, Felix reaches up and slaps Sylvain over the back of the head.

“Ow—What?!” Sylvain turns around, mock anguish soured some by the grin on his stupid face. “Upset by my  _ practised _ and  _ artful _ lying?”

Felix jabs a finger at him. “Next time  _ you’re _ Hubert,” he hisses before turning on his heel and walking back into town.

“Are you not going to thank me!?” 

“No!” 

“Wait, where are we going?” Sylvain shouts, and Felix hears him scramble to catch up with him.

“I’m going to find an actual breakfast! And more alcohol!” 

The hike to the scene of the crime is a lot shorter than Felix thought it would be. In all honesty, he’d been expecting it to take well over an hour, but Aalhus is a deceptively small town. 

After breakfast, they meet back with Verges and her small squad at their camp. They follow the river for about a half-hour, hopping over low rock walls every so often that mark the boundaries of different farms and pastures. Dawn is fully broken by the time they reach the edge of the farmland and the beginnings of the wild moor in question, and the mist burns off the rolling fields like hot steam as the sun climbs higher above the surrounding hills. 

There is no warmth in it though; the air bites with the chill of the late season, and Felix tugs his cloak tighter. 

The imperials aren’t chatty by any means, and Verges, in particular, seems entirely focused on retracing the dead squadron’s trail, but a few of the younger soldiers fall back to attempt to make conversation with their new mercenary friends. 

“You two must be a bit put out huh?” one of the soldiers says. “All this bloodshed on a holiday. Pyre-night, right?” 

“Maybe, but Pyrenatt is all about spooky stories,” Sylvain offers. “Ghosts, mysteries, death… This is might be the one night a year an untimely murder  _ won’t _ ruin.” 

“That’s… uh… dark,” another soldier says. 

“That’s  _ Faerghus _ ,” Felix grumbles.

“Yeah,” Sylvain chuckles. “Sorry if that wasn’t on the brochures when you signed up to serve your lovely Emperor, but—”

Sylvain’s words come to an abrupt stop, as does he. His eyes widen and his smile begins to slip, and Felix is gripped by the sudden instinct not to look around. 

But, of course, he does anyway.

Felix turns, following Sylvain’s line of sight and looks down the barrel of a nightmare. 

Their path through the heavy grasses has cleared into a small meadow, revealed suddenly by the slowly clearing mist. The most immediately striking feature of the area is a circle of standing stones, about five upright but several more toppled over, arranged in a wide ring. The stones that remain upright are about seven feet tall and are dappled and worn with age. 

A few yards from the edge of the stone circle is a burbling stream, and though it is the loudest noise, the icy waters do absolutely nothing to hide the buzzing of flies swarming over the glistening mess of gore strewn about the area.

Blood paints the heath red, still somewhat shimmering and wet, and as Verges begins to send members of her squad out to search a wider area, Felix begins to see the full extent of the chaos. 

Guts and entrails are littered throughout the inner circle, up the sides of the standing stones and across the flattened heather underfoot. The mess gleams with a riot of not only sickening crimson, but also swathes of purples and blues as Felix spies entire organs dashed across the site like confetti. 

He’s been fighting for a long time, but he doesn’t think he’s been at it quite long enough to have come to terms with bloodshed of this type. 

_ Massacre.  _

“So here we are,” Verges announces coldly. “This is where the bodies were found this morning. A scouting party encountered them when the stench attracted their hounds.”

“Sweet Serios’s tits,” Sylvain breathes. Felix punches him in the arm. 

“ _ Rational _ ,” he reminds him, then steps forward, following the imperials into the circle. 

There’s a superstition about circles he doesn’t entirely subscribe to, about who should step into them and how one should go about it. Some parts of Faerghus believe them to be portals, while others believe them to be the gravesites of ancient witches and other things blundering travellers shouldn’t mess with. 

He doesn’t believe in most of it, but he does knock on the stone three times just to cover his ass. He hears Sylvain do the same. 

The lieutenant chosen to remain with Verges stares wide-eyed at the two of them. Felix ignores the stare, but Sylvain laughs. 

“It’s polite to knock, don’t you know?” he says. The lieutenant’s eyes flick from the piles of gore on the grass to the stones, before he quietly raises a hand and knocks on one of the stones. 

Felix fights down a smile. 

“What are these things?” Verges asks, watching the display with only half her attention. “There are several of them in this area, and I know of troops who have encountered them in other regions of the Dukedom.”

“ _ Menhir _ ,” Sylvain answers coolly, stepping around what looks like half a liver caught in a patch of flattened bramble. “Standing stones, in more common parlance. They’re rocks.”

Verges frowns, Sylvain grins, and Felix tries not to laugh. He doesn’t want to give Sylvain the satisfaction.

“I can see that they’re rocks,” she drawls. “I meant what are they  _ for _ ?”

Felix fans out around the inner perimeter of the stones, keeping one ear on the conversation as he does. The blood seems to be sprayed everywhere with no rhyme or reason—it’s almost a wonder there was any left to stain the sheets of the cart.

“No one really knows,” Sylvain offers. “They pre-date what we consider modern civilization in Fódlan.” 

There are piercing gouges and slashes  _ everywhere _ , and seemingly against his will, Felix’s mind fills in each blank with a shadowy figure and an ivory glaive. He can see the scene play out—a cut here, a slash here, a bone-crunching strike there...

Felix knows a lot of things. He knows Dimitri is dead, and he knows while it would be nice if he weren’t and this murderer was him, it’s probably not. It’s probably anything else.

He also knows that ghosts  _ aren’t _ real, and even if they  _ are _ , ghosts don’t crack the earth and fling guts and ichor over it like macabre holiday ornaments.

He runs his fingers over a gash in one of the stones. It’s deep, gouged with forward momentum behind it; a piercing blow, not a swinging one, like a drill. 

A polearm or sword then, driven with a strength behind it that had been enough to drill into a rock that’s stood here for centuries… millennia, even...

Someone  _ incredibly _ strong is responsible, that much is clear.

Felix grits his teeth at the name that comes to mind. Impossible is the only word for it, but his considerations are weighed down by  _ what-ifs _ —desperate  _ what-ifs _ that only serve to slow him down and cloud his sense of rational judgement. 

“I continue to feel like a fool,” he says quietly.

“At least we’re fools together,” Sylvain says in a sombre, kind tone. He’s behind him now, when did that happen? He stands up, and says louder: “What’s your verdict?”

Verges and her lieutenant look over. Right.  _ This _ shit. 

Felix sighs. 

“Not an animal,” he replies, loud enough for Verges to hear as she walks over. “It was one man, or perhaps several of the same height and weight, but that’s...”

“Not likely?” Verges asks incredulously.

“ _ Improbable… _ ” Felix amends, “The height of the visible slashes are contiguous with one attacker using the same style—if you could even call it that—They had a lance or sword—”

“Lance,” Sylvain says. 

Felix shoots him a warning look. __

Sylvain shrugs. “Sorry. Continue.”

Felix grits his teeth, looking back out at the mess strung through the brush and stones. Not an animal, but someone who might as well be. 

“Whoever did this is inordinately strong,” he says finally, levelling his gaze at Verges. “Not just in skill, but physically, too.” 

The lieutenant scoffs. “How strong could one man possibly be?” 

“Oh, I don’t know,” Sylvain drawls, wandering over to one of the standing stones that have been speared. “How about this?”

He raises his leg and delivers a swift, but not particularly forceful, kick to the stone. It’s enough; With an almighty creak, the entire rock separates at the spear incision and begins to topple—slowly, then at speed, crashing through the heather and bramble, and thudding to a stop in the dirt. 

The lieutenant goes pale. 

“Alright,” Verges sighs. “So we’re looking for an impossible strongman with the battle etiquette of a wild dog. Great.” 

Felix drifts over to the northern end of the stone circle. There’s more to this, he thinks. He can  _ feel _ it; this picture isn’t complete yet. 

He crouches down, running his hand over a patch of flattened grass. 

“I don’t think this is where they were attacked,” he says suddenly. 

“What?” 

“What?!” 

Felix looks over his shoulder and scowls at the sudden scrutiny levelled at him. Verges and Sylvain stare back with twin looks of confusion, while the lieutenant looks ready to throw up. 

“I think they were  _ moved _ here,” he continues, ignoring Verges’ inquisitive stare and instead focusing on Sylvain’s; the more comfortable of the two.

“I think they were attacked. Maybe incapacitated in some way to prevent them from moving? Then dragged here.”

He points down at the grass, where the grass is flattened. 

“Possibly from the north…” he mumbles “...then through into the circle.”

He can almost picture it. A cloaked figure, hulking and strong, dragging behind him the broken, still living bodies of three soldiers. The heather and bramble sticking in their exposed, bleeding skin, the full moon shining down… 

“But wh—alright,” Verges sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose, “Presuming this was indeed premeditated and not a random act of violence, why move them  _ here _ ? Did you not say they had no purpose?”

Felix doesn’t exactly have an answer for that. He looks to Sylvain, who scratches his chin thoughtfully. His eyes flick to the stones, and when they snap back to Felix they hold an eerie light. 

Without another word, Sylvain wanders over to one of the upright stones—one of the stones cracked from some kind of piercing attack. He runs his hand over it silently before turning around and beckoning Felix and Verges over. He stands with his back pressed against the stone and smiles. 

“Attack me,” he says to Felix. 

“What?” Felix and Verges say in unison. 

Sylvain ignores them. “With your sword. Make it a thrusting attack, like you’re using a lance.”

Felix sighs and raises his sword. Verges splutters.

“You’re just going to do it?!” she protests. Felix ignores her and readies his stance. 

Sylvain’s smile doesn’t crack, but he does make a lifting motion with his hand. “Raise it a bit…” he says. “Try six… no… eight or so centimetres. Go for my core.”

Felix obliges, letting his shoulder roll into the new form.

“This better be worth it,” he mutters, then lunges forward. 

The strike is a perfect one. Felix does not doubt he’s not going to hit Sylvain—however self-sacrificial the guy is he’s not going to make Felix the one to kill him—so of course he’s going to give this attack the same polish he gives all of his attacks. He glides forward like a human arrowhead, paying no mind to the shouts of the imperials around him, and aims his blade for Sylvain’s sternum. 

At the last second Sylvain side steps, but Felix keeps going. 

The point of his sword clangs into the standing stone, carried by the momentum of his forward push, and he feels the awkward grinding of steel against the rough rock. 

Felix is strong, but he’s not typically “break rocks with your bare hands” strong—that had always been Dimitri’s job—so it’s a little surprising when he finds he cannot tug his blade out of the stone.

His sword, aiming for Sylvain’s midsection, is perfectly pinned into the crack where the attacker had struck his polearm. 

“Now imagine if you will…” Sylvain says in a dark voice, sidling up to Felix but making his voice loud enough for Verges and the others to hear. “You’re one against three… you’ve incapacitated them, but who’s to say they won’t make a desperate strike while your back is turned?”

He reaches out and closes his hand around Felix’s, the one still clutching the blade’s hilt, and helps him tug it out of the gouge in the stone. 

“You want them in one place—standing, trapped, watching you tend to the others…”

Felix, his blood running cold, turns to look Sylvain in the eye, and sees none of his earlier mirth. 

He almost looks  _ scared _ . 

“...but they need a little help standing up… help staying in one place,” he mutters. “So you take their spears and you do it for them.”

In an instant, the shape of the scene takes place in Felix’s mind, and with it a chasm that opens in his gut,  _ twisting _ and  _ cold _ and  _ consuming _ .

“Goddess above…” Verges mutters into her hand, obviously coming to the same conclusion. “You’ve got to be fucking joking.”

There are three standing stones with those same piercing cracks, and now Felix can recognise that they’re all at the same height; the height he hit. They’re roughly equidistant, so each man pinned to each stone like a butterfly on display would be able to see the other two in clarity. And from each stone spread the heaviest trails of blood and gore. He can picture it now, one man at a time, bowels ripped from their abdomen in the manner a dog tosses dirt aside to make way for a bone. The others left watching,  _ waiting _ for their turn.

He can see it all. He can see the field of this attack for what it truly is.

Torture.

_ Slaughter _ . 

Felix clenches his fists so hard he feels the hilt of his sword creak. 

Then, Sylvain’s hands, still wrapped around his own, give a reassuring squeeze, and slip away. When Felix looks up he catches the tail end of the concerned glance Sylvain sends his way and tries desperately to drag himself back to reality. 

It’s hard—harder than it should be—because this violence is  _ familiar _ . The shape of this slaughter is like a memory. 

Felix sheaths his sword.

“So… This is truly a human’s doing?” Verges asks. Her eyes are wide like she doesn’t know what she wants the answer to be. Felix can’t entirely blame her. 

“I think so,” Sylvain says grimly. “So you might want to go get your men, Captain.”

She nods slowly and drags her lieutenant up from where he’s finishing emptying his stomach. They head off to gather their forces without another word, leaving Felix and Sylvain in their wake. 

They stand among the violence, as still as the stones surrounding them. 

The wind rustles the grasses, a soft hushing thing, like the waves of a sea meeting shore. 

“So…” Sylvain sighs. “How rational are we feeling now?”

_ There is not a single gentle thing behind Dimitri’s eyes.  _

_ Felix is young, but he has not many times been afraid—not in battle. Battle is in his blood, in the blood of Faerghus and his own specifically.  _

_ Where the common people pass on stories of the hero kings as myth around campfires, the nobles of Faerghus who trace their blood back to the veins of Loog and Kyphon recite the tales as testaments of irreversible identity.  _

_ You are the blood of heroes.  _

_ You are brave, you are strong, you are free, you are powerful. _

_ There is not a single gentle thing behind Dimitri’s eyes.  _

_ They are blue, his eyes. They say the Blaiddyds carry the sea and sky in their veins, and that’s why their eyes are so often blue. Blessings from the goddess and—depending on who you ask—blessings from the old gods, too. To capture the heavens and the raging sea, two forces of nature brimming with life and plenty… they say it is a sign of fortune for the kingdom.  _

_ ‘They’ have always been a stupid entity, in Felix’s mind. ‘They say’ this and ‘they say’ that. Who are they?  _

_ ‘They’ are not here right now. Only Felix. Only Dimitri. _

_ There is not a single gentle thing behind Dimitri’s eyes.  _

_ Felix has not many times been afraid, but he is afraid now. Dimitri stands above the eviscerated corpses of revolutionaries, his lance so caked in blood that it drips in streams from its glinting tip like rainwater. There is nothing gentle behind his eyes. There is only violence and animal anger.  _

_ They are fifteen. _

_ He snaps his blue eyes to Felix, and they contain neither the sea nor the sky. His eyes are dead and cold like ice—like the frost that rains down on their towns in the winters, killing children as they lay in their too-cold beds. _

_ Felix wonders if this is what it feels like to fear dying.  _

Felix knows a lot of things. He knows that the prince of Faerghus was reportedly executed in the capital a year ago. He knows that he’s on the losing side of a civil war. He knows that ghosts aren’t real. 

He also knows the familiar and horrifying shape of this violence. He knows to whom these fingerprints of rabid, decadent slaughter belong. 

He knows that Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd is alive. 

And he doesn’t know if that’s a good thing. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve been watching a lot of Vera with my parents lately, and also playing A LOT of The Witcher 3. Can you tell??? CAN YOU TELL??? Anyway welcome to CSI: Fhirdiad sorry this was 5k of Felix being a standoffish forensic investigator.
> 
> Also Dimitri at peak murder hobo?? Killing willy nilly?? You think I, Clare Schistosity, am not going to make the consequences of that as GORY as possible? You know me now, fools. Standing stone torture circle power hour wassup??

**Author's Note:**

> It's midwinter in New Zealand, sorry to all you northern hemisphere babes but I'm feeling the m o o d...
> 
> Thanks for reading. You can find me on tumblr @fizzityuck, on twitter @claregormy, or wandering the moors like a restless spirit...


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